Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Wilder, Thornton. Heaven's My Destination. Harper & Brothers, 1935.
Price: US$156.50 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 1935 11th printing. Signed without inscription by author on title page. Includes new facsimile jacket. Boards a bit toned with a few faint signs of foxing. vi, 304 pp. Meet George Marvin Brush -- Don Quixote come to Main Street in the Great Depression, and one of Thornton Wilder's most memorable characters. George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois -- and into the soul of America itself.
Seller: Yesterday's Muse, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA, Webster, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$175.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: FIRST EDITION. Signed and inscribed by Thornton Wilder "For the Staff and Readers of the Lenox Library with the Greetings of Thornton Wilder, Lenox, August 1939". Full light tan cloth with orange decoration to spine and dark brown lettering. The book is quite cocked. Small brown stain to back cover lower corner. Lenox Library bookplate behind front cover with "Due Date" plate on front free endpage. Gutter visible between endpage and half title. Embossed stamp on title page with library numbers on contents page. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall
Seller: Ziern-Hanon Galleries, Frontenac, MO, U.S.A.
Wilder, Thornton. Heaven's My Destination.. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1935.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of this comedic novel about aÂmodern-day Don Quixote. Octavo, original cloth. With an autographed postcard from Thornton Wilder laid in. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket art by Haberstock. "In 1930, after the publication of his third novel, The Woman of Andros, Wilder had established himself as a prominent American author. However, Michael Gold, critic with The New Republic, published a scathing review [which] culminated in a literary call to arms: 'Let Mr. Wilder write a book about modern America. We predict it will reveal all his fundamental silliness and superficiality.' Whether Heaven's My Destination is a direct response to this challenge is unknown. However, with the intention of demonstrating the struggle of the American mind, 'forever alternating between ethical puritan aspiration and the busy realist vainglory,' Wilder offered his first complete survey of modern American society" (Matthew Angelo, Thornton Wilder Society). Critic Edmund Wilson called the novel, Wilder's "finest to date." Perhaps most notably, Heaven's My Destination shows Wilder exploring the minimalist, action-based style he would later put to great effect in "Our Town."
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Wilder, Thornton. Heaven's My Destination.. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1935.
Price: US$975.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of this comedic novel about a modern-day Don Quixote. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by Thornton Wilder on the title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket art by Haberstock. An exceptional example. "In 1930, after the publication of his third novel, The Woman of Andros, Wilder had established himself as a prominent American author. However, Michael Gold, critic with The New Republic, published a scathing review [which] culminated in a literary call to arms: 'Let Mr. Wilder write a book about modern America. We predict it will reveal all his fundamental silliness and superficiality.' Whether Heaven's My Destination is a direct response to this challenge is unknown. However, with the intention of demonstrating the struggle of the American mind, 'forever alternating between ethical puritan aspiration and the busy realist vainglory,' Wilder offered his first complete survey of modern American society" (Matthew Angelo, Thornton Wilder Society). Critic Edmund Wilson called the novel, Wilder's "finest to date." Perhaps most notably, Heaven's My Destination shows Wilder exploring the minimalist, action-based style he would later put to great effect in "Our Town."
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.